


Skip It

by TheSigyn



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-14 22:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4582938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Skip it. If you love her, skip it. She knows she’s done wrong. You’re both alive. Life’s short and sweet and precious. Love’s the only thing worth a damn. Don’t play games. Take her into your arms and taste her before it’s too late.” Tara comes to talk with Spike shortly after As You Were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skip It

  
    The knock on Spike’s crypt door was polite, almost timid, and the person on the other side did not just burst in a second later. That meant Tara. Spike knew it even before he caught her scent under the door. He sighed and pulled himself up from his chair to let the witch in. With a singular sense of respect for a vampire’s lair, Tara wouldn’t come in without an invite.

    That was the only reason he was willing to see her at all. He opened the crypt door with a creak and sighed when he saw her. “What do you all want of me now?” he asked.

    “A-all? What? I-I just wanted to talk to you.”

    Spike let go the door and stepped away, leaving it open. Tara crept in hesitantly, looking around at his candles. She had grown more timid and nervous in the last months – ever since she’d broken up with Willow, in fact. Spike had noticed it. The two witches fed each other, and they weren’t doing well apart. Neither of them. “Talk to me about what?” Spike asked, and he went to his table to pour himself another drink. He wasn’t as drunk as he was yesterday. He hoped he could be more drunk tomorrow. He seemed to be building up his tolerance, and that was a bad sign. It might mean facing the world straight sober, and he hadn’t done that in three days. The only times he could approach sober was when he stoked his rage, and it was exhausting doing that every day. It was easier to sink down into misery and then drown that in drink.

    “I.... You may have gathered, Buffy....” Tara swallowed. “Buffy lost her job the other day.”

    Spike scoffed. “Did she. I suppose the Doublemeat Palace will have to survive the next apocalyptic siege without their pet slayer.”

    “That’s not good, Spike,” Tara said. “Without a job, Buffy’s got troubles. She needs to appear stable so they’ll let her keep Dawn. She has financial problems, and mounting debts, and even with the help Giles gave her before he left, she can’t just–”

    “Talk to her about it, then,” Spike said. “I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”

    “Stop.”

    Spike looked up at her. “What?”

    “Stop,” Tara said earnestly. “Or at least slow down. Willow and Dawn miss her. She’s never home, things are... awkward... between her and everyone, and you’re... you’re not helping.”

    Spike blinked at her. “ _I’m_ not helping? She won’t let me, pet.”

    Tara rolled her eyes. “Spike. Look, I have... have real respect for you. You’ve done a lot of good, and I think you mean well... m-most of the time. About Buffy, at least.” She took a step toward him. “But this thing, with Buffy... it’s tearing her apart. You need to help her, Spike, not just let her... do anything. She’s... she feels so twisted right now, and I think you’re making things worse. I think if you just slow down, give her a chance to find her feet, and then maybe the two of you can... I don’t know... sort out something more... stable, or....”

    Spike laughed hopelessly as he realized what was going on. “You’re out of the loop, pet,” he said. He sank heavily down into his chair and took a swallow of his drink. “She’s already done,” he said, not looking at Tara.

    “What do you mean?”

    “I’m shocked she even told you. Or did you figure it out at her birthday?” He glanced over at her. “Do the others know?”

    “No. It’s a secret.”

    “Of course it is,” Spike muttered.

    “She... she told me about the two of you when I looked over her spell. The one that brought her back? Because of your chip. She-she was afraid she’d... come back wrong.”

    “Nope,” Spike said, rubbing his forehead with one finger. “She came back exactly as you’d expect someone to.” He looked right at her. “What did you all think was going to happen? Sweetness and light? Lah-de-dah happy days? How many vampires have you Scoobies killed over the years? A few dozen each? A hundred?”

    “I don’t keep score like that,” Tara said.

    Spike laughed. “How many are dressed like bums, live like animals, think like beasts? How many smell as if they’d just crawled out of the grave? Coming back messes you up. Yeah, we’re filled with power and connected to the great evil, but we’re not meant to be here, and most of us know it. The blood becomes everything, until nothing else matters, not clothing, not grooming, not where we live. It’s all useless. We’re dead.” He was very drunk. He was glad of it. “Life,” he went on. “Love. Day to day. If you can hold on to even a fraction of that, you can become powerful among the undead. Otherwise... you’re just waiting for dust.” He took another swallow of his drink. “She came back to a life that wasn’t s’posed to be hers any longer. ‘Course she didn’t care sod all about it.”

    “Spike, I don’t think that’s true.”

    “Her problems aren’t my fault, Tara,” he said then, staring into his drink. “I was just there. Convenient...” He shook his head. “I was just a way back into the grave.” He paused then, and trembled, and to Tara’s surprise, tears filled his eyes. He gasped it away quickly, but she’d seen.

    “Buffy’s already ended it,” she realized. That was the reason for the current downswing in her depression, not confusion over still being with Spike. Tara felt awful. She should never have come, she knew it now. She’d come to tell him to stop messing Buffy up, and she realized now he was at least three times as messed up as Buffy had been.

    “Of course she’s ended it,” Spike said, his jaw tight. “She was always ending it. Every time it happened she ended it. Last time, guess she finally meant it. Soldier boy came back and reminded her what love really was, I guess. The soulful love of a lying bigoted addict who laid all the blame at her feet. Yeah. Compared to that, I was _big_ mistake.” He swallowed. “If she’s lost her job, it’s sod all to do with me.”

    “I’m sorry,” Tara said. “I shouldn’t have... interfered.”

    “Yeah, well, you didn’t, did you? Can’t interfere with something that isn’t there.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I love how you just assume it was all me... leave none of the blame free to lay at your own damn feet. Or Red’s.”

    “Willow didn’t know–”

     “‘Course she didn’t know. She didn’t ask.” He stood up. His glass was empty. He set it down on the table to refill it. “It doesn’t matter, right? It’s done. You’ve performed your little rescue mission, and find the big bad monster’s already off the slayer’s throat. No longer sucking her down to his level. You can go home now.”

    “I didn’t think you were sucking her down,” Tara said. “I just... she cried in my lap for an hour over you,” Tara said. He looked up at that. “She was so confused. And then, she was so down yesterday, when I saw her at Anya’s fitting for the dresses....”

    “She was?” he looked painfully hopeful. Tara wished she hadn’t mentioned it.

    “I just thought.... I shouldn’t have assumed. I thought you needed to slow down... t-talk about things. Come up with something real–”

    “You think I didn’t want that?” Spike exploded. “You think I wasn’t aching for that every single bloody day, while I let her beat me unconscious, and tear through my flesh, and curse me to my face? What do you think I’ve been doing to her? Was I the one who broke _her_ eye socket?”

    Tara blinked at him. She hadn’t realized it had been that bad. “She’s... been going through something...”

    “You think I didn’t know that?” Spike snapped. He advanced on her. “I’m the only who _did_ , the only one who bloody _cares_. None of you can face the dark inside her. None of you could stomach it, let alone survive it. I was battling it with her, let her bleed it out into me, and all you can see when you look at me is a soulless monster you can lie to and manipulate and order about, because that’s all I am to all of you. _Dead_.” He’d backed her up nearly to the wall as he spoke, and at the last word punched the concrete behind her head, hard. “And you have no respect for the dead,” he snarled.

    Tara closed her eyes and bowed her head. “You’re right,” she said.

    Spike was surprised. He stepped back from his looming intimidation.

    “You’re right. It was wrong. I didn’t see, in time, what was happening to Willow. How far lost she’d gotten.” She shook her head. “I should have stopped it, before Buffy was.... I should have ended it sooner.”

    Spike laughed. “Ended it,” he said quietly. “There’s no end. Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. Death’s the only end there is.” He stepped away and went back to his bottle. “Do you love her?” he asked.

    “Buffy?”

    “Red,” Spike said. He filled his glass.

    Tara stood speechless for a moment at the seeming change of subject. “It’s... it’s complicated.”

    “It’s very simple. Do you love her?”

    “I...” Tara looked down. “She violated me,” she said. “All of us... but me... our memories....”

    Spike laughed. “She’s done worse. Ask Buffy about our marriage vows sometime.” He swallowed half his drink and refilled it immediately. He went to sit back down, but not before Tara had caught tears in his eyes again. “She’s off magic. She knows she screwed up. Go back to her.”

    “It’s not that simple,” Tara said. “We’ve both been... learning more about ourselves. We have to get to know each other again... see if we’re even... interested... to see if we could forgive... and still love....”

    “Skip it,” Spike said.

    “What?”

    He looked up at her. “Skip it. If you love her, skip it. She knows she’s done wrong. You’re both alive. Life’s short and sweet and precious. Love’s the only thing worth a damn. Don’t play games. _God_ , don’t play games. Just skip it. Take her into your arms and taste her before it’s too late.”

    Tara shook her head. “I can’t do that,” she said. “I’ve lived with an abuser before. My father lied to me, to make me into what he wanted. I can’t just accept that from anyone.”

    “Sure you can,” Spike said. “It wouldn’t matter to me if Buffy wanted to wipe my memory clean at the end of every day. God!” He looked up at the ceiling. “I almost wish someone would. She could lie to me. Beat me, burn me, I don’t care. She could do anything but leave me, and I’d be happy with it.” He shook his head. “But leave is what she did.”

    “That’s not healthy, Spike.”

    He laughed almost hysterically. “I’m already dead, what’s it matter?” He looked over at her, and this time, he didn’t try to hide the tears in his eyes. “Love her. What does it matter what she’s done to you? Wiped your memory. Beat you unconscious. Murdered your family. Drained you dry and left you dead in an alleyway, what’s it even matter? If you can love her, do it. Swallow it down and make it part of you. Learn to love the pain.” He shook his head. “Forget the morality of it, for her or you. Love. Just love. Just let yourself....” He rubbed his forehead, as if trying to push his brain out of his skull. “Why do none of you let yourselves? You’re alive. Why do you waste all that heat?” He paused for a moment, fazed by misery, and then he drew in a breath and went back to his drink. It was drunk away a second later.

    “No one should have to live like that, Spike,” Tara said then. “Not even you.”

    “Torture of one kind or another, pet,” he said quietly. “I’d rather be broken with her than without her.” He shrugged. “If that makes me sick... if it makes the whole thing wrong... I knew that to start with.” He lifted his glass only to realize it was empty already. He gaged the distance from his chair to his table with a rueful eye.

    Tara took pity on him and just handed him the bottle. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I shouldn’t have come.”

    Spike held the bottle as if it were an old friend, and refilled his glass. Tara wondered why he even bothered. Some vague vestige of humanity was in the gesture, as if he wouldn’t abandon himself directly to a bottle. “I’m glad you did,” he said. He set the bottle on the floor by his foot and looked up at her. “Tell her to go to hell.” He looked down into his glass. “I’ll be waiting for her there.”

    He stared into the amber fluid for a long time before Tara realized he’d disappeared into it. He was done talking. “I’m sorry, Spike,” she said again.

    Spike only closed his eyes, and Tara was ashamed to see he was crying again. She’d come and made things worse for him, she knew she had. She should have talked to Buffy, first. No, she should have stayed the hell out of it.

    She went to the door and opened it. As she passed through she heard Spike’s voice, one more time. “Skip it.”

    She swallowed, and closed the door behind her. She couldn’t just forget what Willow had done. She couldn’t ignore the lies and the manipulation, not after what had happened to her mother, not after living as she had lived for eighteen years with her mentally abusive father. But Spike’s misery had touched her. The love she and Willow had shared suddenly seemed that much more precious.

    She wasn’t sure she could trust Willow. She wasn’t even sure she could trust herself to love Willow. But Spike had planted a seed deep in her mind that she couldn’t quite dislodge. _Don’t play games. Just let yourself. Skip it_.

    She almost wished she could.


End file.
